November 25, 2024

Been a few changes of late:

Start with the biggest being I am no longer in communication with my ex-wife as of November 9th.  This was not a rashly made choice as it has been building for a while now, and my therapist has been telling me I should lest I never heal fully.  This complicates transfers of Buttercup, and potentially limits new pictures and news of Buttercup’s life–honestly the only reason I actually kept communication open.

She did finally admit to the lie that in the end caused the destruction of our marriage–never mind the massive tome of lies throughout our marriage.  Like anyone with her mental condition she will never take accountability for the lies, the abuse, or anything she has caused.  The last conversation included yelling at me regarding things I thought resolved 20 & 30 years ago, and once again digging at my being trans–a fact she knew from when we were dating and said she had no problem with…obviously a lie looking back.  I’ve been writing a list of her lies and abuse along with Jobe’s and my mom’s for my therapist, and to say it has been eye opening would be to put it mildly especially how much overlaps/repeats.

So far the fall out has been exactly predictable on her end.  For me it was not predictable, I come home to the same house at the same time, and it used to be really hard walking into the dark, quiet, and empty house, but now it is nowhere near as foreboding.  I’m not spending so much time doom scrolling that suddenly I’m hungry and it's past bedtime.  My dishes are catching up.  I’m getting more cleaning done.   I’m still alone, but suddenly not near as lonely.  My anxiety and nightmares are pretty much gone.  I’m cooking real food again.  So overall a lot better off than I was.

 

If you follow my twitter or Instagram you’ll be aware that raising the top of my shop foundations has begun.  The lawn & garden garage section is built up to having the forms pulled off.

Sometime next year I will fill in the slab so the floor will be as high as the foundation.

The concrete mixer had the issue that the barrel gasket slipped out of place on day one of using it.

 

This slip caused the mixer to become a concrete slinger as it was running.  A tear-down glue and reassembly fixed the issue.

At this point the walls get assembled and raised into place on top of the now 6 inches/15 cm above grade foundation.  Now if you wonder how that will happen on my own given two walls are 29 feet/8.8 meters and approximately 500 Lbs/227Kg that is where owning Devastator aka my tractor comes in. (Side note the leasing manager at work named it and Devastator is a very fitting name as it can do in minutes what takes me days) I had an offer from Temu for a set of pallet forks that quick attach for $145 these will allow me to raise and set walls all by onsie.  The big thing I noticed is that I can swap bucket to forks in about five minutes!

They are already proving to be quite handy too.

Been 30+ years since I have driven a forklift or forked tractor but I managed to set that stack on the first try.

I also used them to move a dried out brush pile from too close to the tracks to the burn spot.

The video refuses to attach so the one minute 32 second video is here

Spent a little time Sunday and practiced my Shakespeare:

Double bubble toil and trouble

Gas fire burn and stainless cauldron bubble

To a quart of hydric acid add two quarts of cranberries, a dash of cloves, and three dashes cinnamon

Boil and stir, stir and bubble until skins crack as they bubble

To the Foley food mill dost thou ladle berries whole and berries brew magenta

Twist and turn

Macerate and smash, every berry to the last

Two cups of Stevia dust do acquire and slowly add faucet juice to keep two cups

Beaten with a fork and drizzled slow into the cauldron dost it go

Fire low, cauldron simmer

Sure-jell dissolve, and in the brew be beaten

Molded and jarred, allowed to cool in the kitchen yard, then into the cold pantry it will sit until at last it has set

From my home to yours may your feasts be fit for kings, and your digestion be unhindered.

Happy Thanksgiving to all

Maura

Breakers or fuses

 

An assortment of load limiting devices from my personal stash

 

Breakers or fuses?

A fuse box has fuses, a breaker panel has breakers, and the names are no more interchangeable than calling all coffee Old Judge or Starbucks.

Sadly electrical manufacturers have made the choice for us by discontinuing fused load centers.  Personally I am pro fuse as fused load centers last and last without much upkeep.  When a fuse blows there is no doubt it blew.

A fuse box recently removed by myself after 100 years of service

 

Breakers are nice in that you can just turn a blown one off and back on again, but they lack the financial incentive to figure out why they blew.  

A reasonably well installed box that I had to inspect recently

 

The dark side of breaker panels is many have been recalled for failing then burning down the building.  Breakers can and will catch fire, typically they smolder, but can ignite–I have had this happen in my previous home and coincidentally it had one of those recalled panels.  

A burnt 100 amp main breaker I replaced over the summer

 

Breakers will fail and trip for no reason causing you to spend on an electrician to diagnose where the problem is when there isn’t one.

There are some neat and often code enforced breakers out there that do truly add levels of safety such as:

Arc fault Circuit Interrupters

These are highly sensitive breakers that detect loose wiring connections (faults) and cause them to trip.  All circuits loosen over time–more on how later–so these add a layer of protection to your home as it is the single most expensive thing you own.

Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter–I bet many of you wondered what GFCI meant on outlets–breakers

Similar to an arc fault but different function, these are more used in wet locations or in instances where electricity and water meet like the pump in a pool, spa, or jetted tub.  Water is an excellent conductor of electricity so say you drop an electric razor in the tub while your significant other is taking a relaxing bubble bath with their rubber duckie or warships, the GFCI will trip almost instantly.  A normal outlet will cause your significant other to get quite a charge they didn’t expect–hence why any outlet within six feet of a sink, tub, toilet, or outside anywhere, is required to have either this breaker or a GFCI outlet.  These breakers are mandatory on pools, well pumps, spas, for the obvious reason that the pump is moving water and overtime water leaks.

Now back with Arc Fault breakers I mentioned that circuits loosen, but how?  Anytime you draw power through a wire it creates heat, sometimes you will notice a wire is warm when using a long extension cord.  That is because no conductor is perfect and they all have resistance over their length–extension cords could almost be their own article.  Now if you stick a voltmeter in any socket of your home you will get either 110v or 220v–give or take depending on your supplied voltage–and that is because there is no real load, but with a special set of adapters you can read both the load being drawn and the voltage present.  The higher the load and smaller the wire the more the voltage drops causing the load to increase and the more load the more heat made.  Light circuits are typically run in 14 gauge wire, normal outlets in 12 ga wire, 14 maxes out at fifteen amp load vs 12 maxing at twenty amp load (chart here).  As the wire heats and cools it changes size very slightly and over time it causes the screws that secure it to fixtures to loosen or you could say it causes the wire to deform and become loose–same for wire nuts traditionally used to make connections where there is no fixture but either a wire splits to multiple places or one wire is tagged to another to keep going–this is why it is against code to cover any junction box.

If you want to stay safe and protect your investment you should have a qualified electrician inspect and retighten your wiring about every ten years–I’d go five if you are unfortunate to have aluminum wiring.  Loose wires are why arc fault breakers exist but that is because people forget to have the electrical system serviced regularly.  Can you do this yourself?  Yes and no.  If you are not familiar with what a bus bar is and what it does you should probably not go near the inside of an electrical distribution box be it fuses or breakers.  If you have to look up how to install an outlet again don’t plan to tighten your own.  There are special torque tools to ensure the terminals are as tight as they should be without breaking them and most people can’t justify the expense for something they do every five to ten years.  Oh and for reference you can turn off the main breaker for any work in the panel but you CANNOT turn off the power coming into the main breaker and those lugs must be tightened as well.  Those main lugs take a very expensive set of sockets to tighten down and even to an electrician those tools are expensive!  (I should know I have the sets myself)

In the end both breakers and fuses do the same job, the big deals are to have them serviced regularly.  Keep inexperienced fingers out of the panels.  Keep regular tools out of the panels.  If something does start going wrong call a pro and save your home or business from catastrophe and with proper inspection reports you may just get a discount on your owner’s insurance.

11-4-2024 Updates

I may be on the mend from Jobe, but I saw her profile Saturday evening while scanning for something on another mutual’s timeline.  Seeing that profile immediately brought all the anxiety back, and anger at the lies told to me.

As usual with her, what little I saw of her profile was filled with lies right down to her dyed hair, heavy make-up, and the excessive filters of her profile. I delved no further, there is no good in that, only extreme pain.

As of Sunday morning I am doing okay aside from nightmares regarding her.  Recovering from Narcissistic Abuse is a really long road according to the therapist. I wasn't looking for her, nor did I expect to see her where I did. What I am left with is a mix of emotions, from her lies, future faking (more lies actually), her constant mental abuse, and her backstabbing by telling mutual friends not to speak to me–yes that is confirmed.  I believe I have mentioned before that the trauma bond is like being addicted to heroin or cocaine and can take years of therapy and absolute no contact of the perpetrator to break.  What this instance shows me is the truth in that knowledge.

Buttercup was here when I stumbled across Jobe’s profile, she is old enough and perceptive enough that she caught my mood shift.  Buttercup realized maybe before I did that Jobe is toxic and as a result does not like her.  My few in person friends also saw first hand what she was doing to me, they all agree I am doing a lot better now.

Until I ended it with Jobe on 12/31/2023 and took the space to clear my head I hadn't realized how abusive she really is. She is evil through and through. I just hope and pray all of her lies, and crimes (yes actual land you in jail crimes) come back to haunt her.  That may sound cruel but at least in jail she would get the psychiatric help that she so desperately needs, and it would prevent her from finding other victims.  I now know of two doctorate level mathematicians, a lawyer, an information technology person, and several others that are all victims of her abuse–most have abandoned twitter in an effort to avoid her.

For me I am working on healing, toward being whole again or possibly even for the first time.  I was raised by a grandiose narcissist and that is one reason why it was so easy to fall for Jobe…she seemed normal to me.

The shop

The forming of the foundation topping is moving along well.  Over this next weekend I’ll be pouring concrete into the forms, then a week later I should be able to start framing the walls.

There is a level of apprehension in being this far along on the shop, and as I was walking in the yard after I got home the other day it hit me as to why.  I've wanted my own place and workshop since I was eight so 46 years now.  Every-time I have gotten close something has gone wrong.

I had a tiny workspace after I was first married at a place we were supposed to be buying from Once Wife’s parents until suddenly they changed their minds and we were forced to move.

I started to get the garage cleaned up and usable at our last house, and we wound up storing a massive mountain of her mom's crap…right smack in the middle of my garage.

We moved to my current house, thought I had space, planned a video channel, and everything disintegrated.

Now again I am seeing a shop starting to form, and I'm scared of "what will be the issue this time?”

 

I guess that’s all the updates for now.  I have a post about fuses and circuit breakers to post soon, maybe next week?

Maura out